1. History of the Technology
Gymnasium wood floors have been supported on spaced parallel metal c-shaped channels which are anchored inside the channel to secure them in a direct fixed relationship with a foundation, such as concrete. Flooring constructions in which the channel assembly is anchored firmly to a foundation surface are known in the industry as channel and clip floor systems. Such floors are characterized by their hold-down muscle in the presence of moisture; unfortunately, since the supporting channel itself is pinned flat down directly into a concrete foundation, the entire flooring system has no resiliency. The way the clip is pinned down inside the channel prevents it from having any vertical linear displacement, downward deflexure, or reciprocal up and down motion which restricts the resiliency of the whole flooring construction. On the other hand, there are floating floor systems, but they suffer from dead spots because they are not uniformly anchored. It is a goal of the flooring construction industry to provide a hardwood surface flooring construction which is anchored down to a foundation, but is capable of downward deflexure yet limits upward motion in response to expansion and contraction forces caused by moisture in the wood, and can react to certain other downward forces caused by highly compensated athletes who are often injured by unforgiving flooring construction.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
The prior art has attempted to address the problem of providing a uniformly resilient flooring system. For example, Omholt U.S. Pat. No. 3,271,916 discloses a flooring system which comprises a plurality of parallel channels secured to a supporting base in which floor boards are secured by connector clips onto the channel and splines which engage the boards which are interposed between the channels. Omholt was attempting to resolve the problem of deflexure when a load was applied at the mid-channel point rather than being applied directly over the channels. To do this, Omholt interposed a shock absorbing material between the lower face of the channel and the supporting base material such as concrete. He also provided shock absorbing material in the void space between the channels and in void spaces between the under faces of the floor boards and the upper face of the supporting base material. In a fashion which is typical of prior art teachings, Omholt disclosed a flooring system which used spaced apart parallel steel channels which were secured to a foundation by means of headed fasteners which were driven through the channels into the foundation material; he used fastening clips to lock the channels directly to the floor system.
Morgan U.S. Pat. No. 3,713,264 discloses a flooring system in which the flooring boards are located in side-by-side relationship on a support with clips having fingers that engage the boards and secure the boards on the support. This securing clip is connected on one end inside a c-channel and has a finger which fits on the other end inside of the groove which is formed on one side of the board. Morgan also fastens his channel directly into a foundation so that the channel can not move. Abendroth U.S. Pat. No. 4,589,243 placed an underlayment on a foundation with a series of parallel grooves in the underlayment with support members in the grooves and floor boards superimposed on the support members and the underlayment with strips of compressed rubber between the floor boards and the underlayment and between the grooves and fasteners for fastening the floor to the support members. Abendroth also permanently fixed and secured his steel channels to the foundation by means of anchors driven through the channels into the foundation so that the channel could not move.
Counihan U.S. Pat. No. 5,016,413 recognized that resiliency is lost when the c-shaped channel is nailed directly into the foundation. To provide more resiliency, he used a resilient sub-floor section underneath the sub-flooring sections, but he still fastened his channel directly into the foundation material so that the channel could not move. Later, Counihan U.S. Pat. No. 5,497,590 disclosed a sub-floor assembly which permitted some limited vertical movement but again, he secured his channel assembly directly to a concrete base floor so that the channel itself was fixed and immovable. There is no teaching in the prior art which discloses a resilient flooring construction which comprises sub-floor channels which are capable of reciprocal up and down motion relative to its anchoring point into the support foundation.